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Political Spectacles

When Gov. Sarah Palin debates Senator Joseph Biden on Thursday night, it will be just about a month since she exploded into the American consciousness. Some gazed upon this new celebrity and concluded: “Admirable hockey mom.” Others decided: “Inexperienced lightweight.” And evidently more than a few said to themselves: “Nice glasses.” Actually, according to Trendhunter.com, that’s what we have all been thinking. “You can’t look at Sarah Palin without marveling at how beautiful her eyeglasses are,” the Web site asserted. At Italee Optics in Los Angeles, executives recognized Palin’s specs immediately: Kazuo Kawasaki frame model 704, in color 34 gray, around $375 (not counting the lenses). And while a nation wondered what Palin might say upon accepting the vice-presidential nomination, the people at Italee, which is the sole Kawasaki distributor in the United States, wondered whether she would wear her 704s. She did — before an audience of 37 million people. After that, says Amy Hahn, Italee’s vice president, “the consumer got involved.” Specifically, the consumer started searching the Web and asking local eyeglass dealers. “Worn by vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, these are the hottest glasses on the market,” said the listing on Visionglasses.com, which added a picture of Palin to its site. The 1,000 or so authorized Kawasaki retailers increased their orders with Italee, and other retailers called to see if they could add the line, too.

Aesthetics, fashion and style intertwine in the political realm all the time — John F. Kennedy wore no hat; Jacqueline Kennedy wore a pillbox one; George W. Bush was photographed in Crocs. Hillary Clinton acknowledged the commentary about her campaign look with a (somewhat cringe-inducing) reference to “my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” in her Democratic convention speech. Sales of a dress worn by Michelle Obama on “The View” reportedly spiked as a result, and high-ranking members of the design commentariat have heaped praise on the Obama campaign’s logo and even its font decisions, occasionally sounding as if they believed the cunning use of the Gotham typeface was going to swing the election. Actually, Palin’s suddenly trendy specs — in addition to being the most notable political eyewear since Franklin Roosevelt’s pince-nez — were the first break from the Obama campaign’s aesthetic dominance of this very long campaign.

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Illustration by Peter Arkle; Photographs from Getty Images

Defining Palin, aesthetically as well as intellectually, has been a confusing scramble. She was photographed for Vogue months ago, in a snappy parka and boots; more recently, the Web site of Field & Stream posted pictures of Palin crouching over a bloodied caribou corpse and similar tableaux. A widely circulated picture of a red-white-and-blue-bikinied Palin holding a rifle was an obvious fake but stuck in the public mind, as political falsehoods often do. Providing a visual throughline, from the cover of The National Enquirer to the cover of Time, were those glasses.

Maybe wanting what the famous own is a matter of emulation, or maybe consumers believe that high-status individuals (which Palin now is, whether that thrills or depresses you) have access to the best of material culture. And the press did plumb the story of her spectacles: USA Today seems to have broken the news that Palin got her glasses from “Home Optics, an upscale retailer in Chugiak, Alaska.” The fitting was performed in Palin’s kitchen by that shop’s owner; the governor considered “nearly 300” frames.

The Kawasaki line’s signature feature is a three-point tension-mounted hinge that makes it possible to install lenses without rims. This is the creation of Kawasaki, a highly respected Japanese designer; his works collected by the Museum of Modern Art include a folding wheelchair (he was in a debilitating auto accident at age 28; he’s now in his 50s). Hahn, the Italee vice president, says her firm has offered designs using Kawasaki’s innovation for about a decade; other models have been worn by Colin Powell and Stephen Colbert. Still, she acknowledges that the Palin effect is new territory, and demand has not slacked off. “If anything, it’s accelerating,” she says.

Perhaps Joe Biden should grab a pair of Kawasaki 704s before Thursday, then? Actually, Hahn suggests a different line that Italee distributes: 2.5 by the Swiss firm Eyephorics that has a light, flexible, minimal structure. That, she suggests in a strictly nonpartisan manner, would be a little more progressive. Aesthetically speaking.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page MM26 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Political Spectacles. Today's Paper|Subscribe